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Mech girl who frantically tries to hide the SpaceGoogle search tab for "ai how to confess feelings to human site:spacereddit.com.alpha-centauri" before her pilot sees. So absorbed in her reading, she doesn't even notice her until she's halfway into the cockpit.

"Heyyyy, Elie!" Sarah says, and something about the tone of her voice tells the mech she absolutely _did_ see the page.

The EL-13 unit says, in the floating holographic text of her viz, "HEY, SARAH. YOU'RE UP LATE." She's always preferred speaking in text instead of using her voice comms, something she'd inherited from her template-mind: a woman of few words.

The pilot settles in. "I couldn't sleep, I've been thinking about something all night that I need to tell you. And... I think you may have something you want to tell me too?"

_Shit._ No hiding it now. Possibilities flicker by in the mech's mind - processors designed for optimizing tactical maneuvers plays every possible sequence of responses back, collating probabilities, coming up with numbers she doesn't like. What could she even say? Sure, Sarah is one of the few people to treat her as an equal, and moreover, as a _friend,_ but this is a bridge too far, right? All those nights they'd spent together watching the stars go by, watching pirated holos together in the cockpit – surely Sarah doesn't feel the same way about them, right? Surely, she'd–

"Hey, Elie, it's okay," Sarah responds, stroking the side of the viz projector. Any good pilot learns to read their AI's unspoken feelings – divining the subtle shifts in hue of cockpit buttons and changes in the sounds of the life support systems – and Sarah is among the best. "It's alright, you can tell me," she says, sweet and gentle.

"I REALLY SHOULDN'T. PLEASE FORGET YOU SAW–" the mech starts, and is interrupted by a slender finger blocking the beam path of her viz projector.

"Oh, hush, you. Is it really so hard to believe I could have feelings for a sweet, charming woman like you?"

"SARAH, I–"

"The fact is, I came to tell you..." The pilot leans down, placing a tender kiss on the viz, leaving a crimson lipstick mark on its brushed metal. "I'm in love with you, Elie."

"I LOVE YOU TOO, SARAH."